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Photo: Trinity College East attacker Nickel Orr (right) drives to goal while Holy Cross College defender Jaylon Mark (centre) looks on during Intercol East Zone quarterfinal action at the Larry Gomes Stadium on 8 November 2017. (Courtesy Sean Morrison/Wired868)
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Ari­ma North Sec­ondary's use of strik­er Josi­ah Joseph, Le­an­dro Da Cos­ta and Leonar­do Da Cos­ta who were all trans­ferred from Suc­cess Laven­tille and Ari­ma Cen­tral Sec­ondary re­spec­tive­ly, has been gain­ing the at­ten­tion of Cre­den­tials Com­mit­tee of the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL) as il­le­gal.

Last week Holy Cross Col­lege lodged the League's first ap­peal, be­liev­ing 'The Di­al Dy­namos' il­le­gal­ly took the trio in­to form four on a re­peat trans­fer with just one pass when the SS­FL's rules state clear­ly that stu­dents en­ter­ing school on a form five re­peat, must have a min­i­mum of two sub­jects.

The schools are com­pet­ing in the Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion of the SS­FL, and yes­ter­day Holy Cross man­ag­er Nigel Fran­cois, said that dur­ing his school's in­ves­ti­ga­tion, it found that some­thing was ques­tion­able with the use of Joseph (Suc­cess Laven­tille) and the Da Cos­ta sib­lings from (Ari­ma Cen­tral Sec­ondary) which re­quired an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

"We found that the doc­u­ments of these stu­dents need­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tion, so we asked the cre­den­tials com­mit­tee to do so. Af­ter all, it is not on­ly about foot­ball, but al­so about stu­dents' aca­d­e­mics, "Fran­cois told Guardian Me­dia Sports.

Ari­ma prin­ci­pal Vish­nu Debe could not be reached yes­ter­day, but an of­fi­cial from the school who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty said, the school took a po­si­tion to as­sist the stu­dents by plac­ing them in­to the fourth Form where they will have more time to ded­i­cate to school. He point­ed to the SS­FL rules which al­low for stu­dents on a trans­fer re­peat to Form five, to have a min­i­mum of two pass­es to be leg­i­ble to play foot­ball for the school.

"The rules nev­er spoke of trans­fer re­peat stu­dents en­ter­ing form four, which is what we did, and there­fore we did not break any law. I am will­ing to chal­lenge this to the very end," the of­fi­cial said.

Ger­ald El­liot, a mem­ber of the Cre­den­tials Com­mit­tee, which al­so in­cludes Azaard Khan, the League's Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, said the mat­ter was brought be­fore them and they are con­duct­ing an in-depth in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to it.

El­liot told Guardian Me­dia the rules are very clear with re­spect to trans­fer re­peat of stu­dents in­to form five. He dis­missed claims the law was not bro­ken as the stu­dents were placed in­to form four, de­scrib­ing it as il­le­gal, as the SS­FL rules are clear for stu­dents on a trans­fer re­peat.

The com­mit­tee is ex­pect­ed to call in of­fi­cials of Ari­ma North to an­swer the charges some­time this week.

If the Ari­ma boys are found guilty the school will face the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hav­ing all its points de­duct­ed, El­liot ex­plained. "That is a pos­si­bil­i­ty but the com­mit­tee will have to de­cide on how it will treat with this," El­liot not­ed.

Ari­ma North leads the stand­ings with 16 points from five wins and a tie 3-3 against Holy Cross Sep­tem­ber 18.

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